NFL history is full of teams that lost the Super Bowl and had a drop-off the next season. The most recent example is the 2018 Los Angeles Rams, who reached the Super Bowl only to lose to the New England Patriots. The Rams didn't reach the playoffs the next season and finished third in the NFC West.
The 2016 Carolina Panthers followed up a Super Bowl 50 loss to the Denver Broncos with a 6-10 season.
Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. There are many, in fact, just in recent history. The San Francisco 49ers don't expect to fall into a post-Super-Bowl-loss slump. They believe their team is different.
Still, as difficult as it is to return to the Super Bowl following winning the game the previous year, it seems even more difficult for the losing team to do so.
The road back will be arduous for San Francisco. The team will face a first-place schedule next season and will do so with a target on its back. No one will take the 49ers lightly in 2020.
There will also be some roster decisions to make with the team more pressed up against the salary cap than it has been in recent years.
Fullback Kyle Juszczyk joined Good Morning Football on Friday and explained why his 49ers can overcome the difficulties of following up a Super Bowl loss.
"We just feel like we're a different group," Juszczyk said. "We have this different chemistry in our locker room that it's really hard to explain unless you're in there, and you can experience it. But we feel like we've already defied some of the odds.
"Two years ago, we started off 0-9. The best a team had ever done after that point is win three games. We won six. We went 4-12 last season, made it to the Super Bowl (this past season). I think only one other team had done better. Bengals had won three games and made it to the Super Bowl (the next season)."
The Bengals actually won four games during the 1987 season before reaching Super Bowl XXIII the next year and losing to the 49ers.
"We feel like we've already defied those odds," Juszczyk continued, "and we can look back on that, and just draw on that experience, and know this team is something special. It doesn't matter what the odds say or the numbers. We think we can get back there, and we're confident in whatever we've got going."
Juszczyk isn't the only one who doesn't care what the numbers say about the 49ers' chances during the 2020 season. Tight end George Kittle also feels San Francisco is capable of returning to the Super Bowl, overcoming this year's mistakes, and getting over the hump.
"I think the work ethic and the mindset around the guys here, and the selflessness from them, I think that in itself will speak volumes," Kittle said last week. "And I think just our mindset going into this offseason, if guys treat it the right way, I think we'll have every opportunity in the world to go back."
